marketing and branding

ads on facebook, sponsored refreshment, and a word on animal testing

Good morning to you all and a lovely Friday! Here it is 7.30 am and I am done with my morning ritual of drinking coffee and bending over facebook’s messages for me.

Good news today: No direct message where someone asks me for help on how to create perfume, find bottles, boxes or alike.  Phew! My email inbox is more worrying, though. The obligatory “are your perfumes tested on animals” question of the week, a musk question, and another “I need your help, buddy”  email.  Therefore, using the opportunity:

NO, my scents are not tested on animals. Of course not. But let’s face it, as horrible as it is: Almost everything that goes into a perfume, natural, synthetics, was tested at some point on animals. Starting with vanillin, and ethanol, ending with lavender essential oil. You have a hard time believing: Do a google search for -for instance – lavender and use the term LD50 with your search. LD50 = lethal dose where 50% of test animals (rats) die. LD50 for lavender spike oil for rats is 3.8 gr per kilogram weight.

I have a hard time imagining why on earth you need an LD50 for lavender essential oil. But there we go…Here’s an example of a google search.

Sometimes, when on Facebook, I check what I get in “sponsored” content = ads. I find this super interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it tells me something about what facebook thinks about me and what might be my wishes, needs and interests. So there we go: FB is failing there, tragically, mostly, with one exception. The exception is: Facebook has learned that I am interested in perfume. How cool’s that? Some billion of engineering hours later: artificial intelligence got it.  Tauer is interested in fragrances and hence he gets to see fragrance ads every day. “Free shipping in Europe.”

On the worrying side: Facebook thinks that I want to get rid of body fat, love handles and wherever you can have too much fat. It also thinks that I am in desperate dating need. And it wants to sell me a credit, and a couple of things more that I will never buy.

Second, knowing by self experience about the price for a perfume shop ad on facebook, and its inefficiency in various terms, I find it interesting to learn which perfume house actually pays to be seen there, on FB.

And third, well, third it always starts me thinking about the price of shares, facebook’s shares, and how much I would pay for these and whether this whole big data thing pays off. I have my doubts. But maybe it is just me who is getting completely immune for sponsored content on FB. Do you click on what you see there, in the facebook’s sponsored ads section?

I don’t … although: Maybe I should.

Creative Friday ahead! And sun.